INDIANAPOLIS - The IUPUI basketball team will host a red hot Robert Morris squad on Thursday night (Feb. 23) inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum on ESPN+. The men's game will be preceded by the women's team against Robert Morris, scheduled to tip-off at 5:30 p.m. The men's game will start roughly 30 minutes afterwards. RMU (15-15, 10-9 HL) comes in on a four-game winning streak, including pummeling the Horizon League's top team, Youngstown State, on Tuesday night. 

IUPUI fans are encouraged to wear BLACK on Thursday as part of a BLACKOUT NIGHT at the Coliseum. The first 100 IUPUI students in attendance will be given $10 concession vouchers and DJ Iman Tucker will provide in-game entertainment. Black and minority owned businesses will be highlighted throughout the evening and the game will be sponsored by IUPUI's Africana Studies, Black Student Union, African Student Association and Black Faculty & Staff Council. 

Head coach Matt Crenshaw's team has continued to fight to the finish of the regular season, but struggled to get games to the finish line all season long. The Jaguars are coming off an 81-68 defeat at Detroit Mercy in a game in which it shot nearly 51 percent from the floor and a season-high 55.6 percent from three-point range. However, UDM feasted at the foul line, outscoring the Jaguars 21-9 at the charity stripe in a 13-point outcome. Vincent Brady II had a team-high 13 points and John Egbuta added 11 off the IUPUI bench. Chris Osten tallied 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting and DJ Jackson closed with eight before later being named the #HLMBB Freshman of the Week. Cooper Dewitt came off the IUPUI bench to knock in a pair of threes for his six points and Marlon Taylor, making his second career start, had six points, five boards, three blocked shots and two steals. 

IUPUI's top scorer, Jlynn Counter, was limited to just five points and 18 minutes due to foul trouble. 

QUOTABLE
"We had that stretch where we turned it over and let them get out in transition and get their energy going. They got some easy ones and that really swung the momentum. I thought we had a good gameplan and for the most part, we stuck to it. Offensively, we were good in the half court and got some really good shots," Crenshaw said following Sunday's loss at Detroit Mercy. 

SCOUTING ROBERT MORRIS
RMU has surged to get to 15-15 on the season and 10-9 in Horizon League play. The Colonials outshoot and outrebound foes for the season while shooting a respectable 34.1 percent from three-point range. Enoch Cheeks (16.0 ppg, 4.6 rpg) and Kahliel Spear (15.3 ppg, 8.1 rpg) make up one of the league's most formidable duos while Josh Corbin (10.9 ppg, 88 3's) is one of the league's top three-point shooters. 

UP NEXT
IUPUI will close out the regular season on Saturday (Feb. 25) when the Jaguars host Youngstown State in the Jungle at 7:00 p.m. That game will be broadcast on ESPN+. 

Tidbits heading into Thursday's game (click here for full game notes)
     ACADEMIC ALL-DISTRICT HONOREES
    IUPUI's Jonah Carrasco and Boston Stanton III were both named to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District earlier this week. Carrasco completed his undergrad with a 3.64 GPA and has maintained a 3.83 mark as he pursues his Master's degree in organizational leadership. Stanton has a 3.70 GPA while majoring in psychology. 

    CRUNCH TIME
    IUPUI has piled up a collection of 'so closes' and 'near misses' this year, going 0-8 this season in games this season decided by seven points or less. 
    Half of IUPUI's most recent 12 losses have come by seven points or fewer, including an overtime loss to Oakland on Jan. 19. 

    EIGHT AWARDS; THREE FRESH AWARDEES    
    IUPUI freshmen have collected eight #HLMBB Freshman of the Week Awards this season as Vincent Brady II has collected four honors and DJ Jackson and Armon Jarrard have been honored twice.
    Brady is second on the team in scoring (10.9 ppg) and third in rebounding (3.9 rpg) and leads the team in minutes played (31.9 mpg, 15th in the HL) and threes made (53). Brady comes in having made at least one three in 24 straight games and in 27 of the team's 29 games this season. He comes in having scored in double-digits in each of IUPUI's last five games, averaging 15.0 points per game during that span and shooting 40.6 percent from three in those five contests. 

    A VERY BRADY DUNK
    Speaking of Brady, you may have seen him on your timeline recently as his dunk in the closing minutes of IUPUI's win over Green Bay went viral on social media. Brady threw down a vicious one-handed hammer with 2:40 to play over GB's Cade Meyer, later earning ESPN's #SCTop10's No. 1 play and 'Dunk of the Day' honors, along with additional mentions from Fox Sports, NCAA March Madness, House of Highlights and other social accounts. It received just under 1-million views on ESPN's SportsCenter account alone. 

    FRESH DUBS
    It would appear that Brady will be hovering around double-digits in scoring all season long as he sits at 10.9 points per game entering today's game, which would break the program's freshman record.   
    Earlier this season, he had a stretch of four straight games with 15-or-more earlier this season, becoming the first IUPUI freshman to do so since Alex Young in 2008. 
    Freshmen scoring in double-digits has been a rarity for the IUPUI program as just two have done so in the program's Division I-era. The aforementioned Young went on to score 2,286 points in his four-year IUPUI career and current Indiana Pacer George Hill scored 1,619 points in three-plus seasons before being drafted in the first round of the 2008 NBA Draft. 
    Here's the full list of IUPUI true freshmen to score in double digits for a season in the Division I era (1998-present). 
    Alex Young - 10.8 ppg (2008-09)
    George Hill - 10.7 ppg (2004-05)

    COUNTER POINTS
    It's safe to say that sophomore guard Jlynn Counter has emerged as the program's most important player this season. Here are a few nuggets about the Oklahoma City-native.
    -he's scored 20-or-more in five of IUPUI's last 10 games
    -he ranks among the Horizon League's top-15 in scoring (13.9 ppg), assists (3.3 apg), field goal percentage (49.5%) and free throw percentage (81.1%)
    -in Horizon League play, he's averaging 13.8 points, 4.1 assists and 4.1 rebounds per game
    -he started the year 0-of-14 from three in the season's first 12 games, but has gone 12-of-36 (33.3 percent) since.

    BAKERS DOZEN
    Senior Marlon Taylor became the 13th different player to start a game this season as he was awarded his first collegiate start at Oakland on Feb. 15. All 12 of the Jaguars' scholarship players have started at least one game this season as graduate student Jonah Carrasco started in place of an injured Chris Osten at Cleveland State. 

    TOPS IN THE COUNTRY
    IUPUI is tops in the nation, having had 14 different players miss at least one game due to injury or illness, 12 of whom are scholarship student-athletes. Highest on the list are Zach Gunn (out for the season), Bryce Monroe (25 games missed) and DJ Jackson (11 games). Other scholarship student-athletes who have missed multiple games this season include Daylan Hamilton (11 games), Amhad Jarrard (9 games), Armon Jarrard (7 games), John Egbuta (5 games), Cooper Dewitt (5 games) and Boston Stanton III (2 games). 
    Behind IUPUI, Wyoming and Iona have all had nine student-athletes miss time.  
    IUPUI has not had a game this season in which the entire roster was available. 

    THE ONLY ONE IS NO. 1
    True freshman Vincent Brady II is the only IUPUI player to have appeared in all 29 games this season and is tied with Chris Osten with a team-high 28 starting nods. 

    TEN HIT TEN
    Freshman DJ Jackson became the tenth different IUPUI player to have a double-digit scoring game for the Jaguars this season, doing so against Detroit Mercy on Jan. 21. Amazingly, of all 10 players who have scored in double-digits this season, none were on the IUPUI roster last season. 

    CHRIS DON'T MISS
    Graduate transfer Chris Osten is currently shooting 67.9 percent for the season, chasing the school record for single-season shooting percentage (Jon Avery - 67.9 percent in 2008-09). The 6-foot-9 forward is shooting an absurd 77.1 percent from the field (54-of-70) at home this year and shooting 73.6 percent in Horizon League games. He's doesn't qualify to be among the national or Horizon League leaders (needs 5 FGM/game to qualify), but would rank fifth nationally if he did qualify. 
    Coming into this season, he had scored in double-digits just one time in his Division I career
in stops at both Arizona State and Northern Illinois, and never had a double-double. However,
in 21 games this season, Osten has hit double-figures 12 times and registered four double-doubles.

    SEEING 20-20
    IUPUI had a pair of 20-point scorers against Oakland last Thursday as freshman Vincent Brady II had a career-high 23 points (8-16 FG, 4-9 3's, 3-3 FT) and Jlynn Counter tallied 22 (8-16 FG, 1-2 3's, 5-6 FT). It marked the first time under head coach Matt Crenshaw that two players have gone for 20-or-more in the same game. 

    FRESH STARTERS
    IUPUI had three freshmen in the starting lineup in the season opener at Iowa State as Vincent Brady II, Amhad Jarrard and Armon Jarrard all got the starting nod. The trio, all of whom are Indianapolis natives, combined on four points, five boards and an assist in their collegiate debut. 
    A fourth freshman, DJ Jackson, made his first collegiate start on Dec. 31 against NKU. 

    4K
    IUPUI hosted its annual NCAA Readers Become Leaders game on Dec. 12 against Spalding University and had a program best 4,114 fans in attendance. The game attracted roughly 3,500 3rd graders from Central Indiana and stressed the importance of creating reading habits at a young age. The 4,114 fans easily surpassed the previous record for an IUPUI home game - 3,327 against Indiana State inside Conseco Fieldhouse on Dec. 23, 2008. 
    The previous record for an IUPUI game inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum was 3,159 in the inaugural game against Indiana State on Nov. 14, 2014.